To intentionally misquote the Soldier from Team Fortress 2: “You are like the Cyclops of Greek myth, except you are the Minotaur of Greek myth, and almost everyone hates you!” What we’ve got here is Minos, developed by Artificer and published by Devolver Digital. Minos is a “maze-building Rogue-lite” in which you play as Asterion, the fabled Minotaur from Greek mythology (and not the flamboyant Baldur’s Gate 3 vampire). Asterion is the son of Pasiphae, wife of Minos, the king of Crete (hence the name “Minotaur”). The gods cursed Pasiphae to fall in love with a bull, which sired Asterion.

King Minos commissioned the architect and engineer Daedalus to build an inescapable maze, the famed Labyrinth, within which Asterion was to be locked away forever. Daedalus did as he was told, but he also took pity on Asterion and effectively became the Minotaur’s adoptive father, unbeknownst to Asterion at first. Now, the team of Daedalus and Asterion must use their respective skills to protect Asterion from mercenaries sent by Theseus to kill him for a bounty. That brings me to the core gameplay loop within Minos, in which you technically play as both Asterion and Daedalus at the same time.

As the two of you navigate deeper into the Labyrinth, you’ll travel to different chambers where you’ll have to fend off several waves of enemies (called “hunting parties”). Fortunately for you, the soldiers sent to hunt down Asterion are polite enough only to enter your current chamber when you expressly permit them to. That’s the “preparation phase” between waves, where you can control both Daedalus and Asterion. Daedalus can construct and destroy stone blocks within the Labyrinth to change the paths enemies will have to follow to reach Asterion’s lair. Daedalus can also acquire and place traps in certain places around the maze.

There are three things that restrict how you can reshape the maze while controlling Daedalus. You cannot block enemies or Asterion from reaching Asterion’s lair, and most traps can only be placed on designated “trap slots.” Since the enemies you’re facing are polite enough to wait to enter the maze until you tell them you’re ready, I guess it’s in the interest of fairness that you’re not allowed to block their path. If you build any new “illegal blocks” (as I’ll call them), Minos will tell you, and you won’t be able to start the wave until you rectify that.

As Asterion, you can dig out certain blocks randomly scattered around the maze to both free up space and acquire valuable loot. Asterion can fight enemies if need be, though you ideally want to make sure the traps you place around the maze will kill them instead. Before each wave begins, Minos is kind enough to tell you how much of a risk each incoming group of enemies will pose to Asterion when fighting them all head-on. That knowledge, combined with Daedalus’ ability to place traps and reshape the maze, helps to stack the odds in your favor.

When enemies enter the maze at the beginning of each wave, they’ll head to Asterion’s lair first unless they see him while en route there. Once they’ve seen Asterion’s lair, they’ll all know exactly where he is and begin heading toward his location. You can use this to your advantage by placing traps around Asterion’s lair and restricting the paths enemies can take to navigate the maze. In my experience, it’s a good idea to have Asterion hide somewhere no enemies will see him before they’ve been to his lair. That will maximize the chances that they spring every trap you’ve set up.

Even if the traps you’ve placed don’t kill every enemy in a wave, your traps will theoretically reduce their numbers enough to give Asterion better odds of being able to finish off any survivors. Of course, that depends on the type (and, therefore, strength) of enemies in each wave, as well as Asterion’s own stats. If Asterion is defeated in battle, the Labyrinth will not allow him to die; instead, he and Daedalus will be brought back to their starting point. You’ll lose any gold and gems you’d looted before dying, but keep the experience points earned from each defeated wave.

Between chambers of enemies, you’ll enter parts of the Labyrinth where Asterion and Daedalus can set up camp. This will both restore a portion of Asterion’s health (assuming he’s missing any) and allow you to spend gold, gems, and experience points in exchange for upgrades. You get bonuses to these if you complete any waves by killing all enemies with traps, and if Asterion takes no damage from enemies. Most upgrades will be locked until Asterion has gained enough experience points to reach a certain level. You can spend gems in the “Imaginarium” to develop new traps you can use in each run.

As Minos is a Rogue-lite, its core gameplay loop expects you to fail frequently early on until you’ve unlocked some permanent upgrades to help you progress further. Minos does a great job of giving the player tons of useful information while managing to avoid both overloading the player with too much information at once and feeling as though it’s holding the player’s hand too much. The fact that the Labyrinth itself rewards you whenever you spill a certain amount of enemies’ blood with traps you’ve set appeals to me. That is, as the youth would say, “totally metal as heck.”

The voice acting I’ve encountered within Minos is great, and I haven’t noticed any errors within its in-game text. Minos is wonderfully appealing to me because of its core gameplay loop, its story, and the fact that I consider myself a bit of a mythology and folklore buff. That being said, you don’t have to know much about mythology to enjoy Minos, especially if you like that addictive “just one more run” mindset that games of this ilk frequently cause. If you tick any of those boxes, I’d highly recommend Minos.

A PC review copy of Minos was provided by Devolver Digital for the purposes of this review.

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Minos

$17.99

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Highly engaging core gameplay loop.
• Great voice acting.
• Really well-implemented Roguelite elements.

Cons

• The levels of in-game gore might be off-putting for some players.